


Focus

by sunbreaksdown



Category: Guild Wars
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbreaksdown/pseuds/sunbreaksdown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This might not be the smartest thing you've ever heard, but...” Carys begins, taking a deep breath. “Maybe we should go back to Orr.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Focus

     Your Mother's roots run deep, and the Grove welcomes you back with bent boughs and twisting vines. Down in the Garden of Night, away from the bustle of merchants, crafters and visitors, light filters in through the canopy of carefully cultivated bridges and pathways and entwined branches, and soft streams of colour cascade from the glowing buds and leaves of plants. You sit with your toes in the shallow water, content to lose yourself in your surroundings, eyes half-lidded. You're more connected to the Dream than you have been in weeks; it's as though you're at the very threshold, staring into it without sight. All sylvari keep you in their thoughts, and the ebb and flow of compassion and sympathy washes over you like the waters you wade through. Word of what happened spread quickly, but even if it hadn't, all would've felt what you went through. It still twists inside of you, no matter how you try suppressing it. 

     Carys is there with you. She hasn't left your side since you escaped the mirror. She'd never been happy being severed from you in the past – and with good reason, you suppose. You ran off and ended up in a krait cage – but recently, you're the great oak and she's the creeping vine. She sits by your side, in silence, mostly. It's the first time you've seen her so calm, so still, as if she's set down roots of her own. Carys was the most enthusiastic, energetic sapling you ever took under your boughs, and when she proved her worth and became a warden in her own right, there were still too many people in need of help for her to consider taking time to herself. Now she seems to realise that you're the one who needs help and stands vigil by your side. You wouldn't have anyone else; she's the only one who truly understands what Orr did to you. She was there. She isn't simply feeling echoes of the experience through the Dream.

     You watch with a smile as her face scrunches up, brow furrowed. She's trying to find something to say, trying to figure out what she can talk about without talking about what happened. Carys has such a kind heart that she still manages to catch you off-guard, day in, day out. If the mess of pulp and sap and leaves in your chest pounded as human hearts do, you'd worry that hers might beat its way clean out of her chest. Her goodness is there in everything she wants to be. A guardian, a warden. There's no need for her to say anything, because all her good intentions ripple through you. But as ever, she tries.

     Pulling off her boots, she says, “I still find these strange—don't you? Boots, I mean. Clothes in general, really.” Pausing, she frowns. “Oh, I understand _why_ we wear them. Because the other races are uncomfortable when _we're_ naked, even though they don't expect trees and bushes to dress up. I just feel so cut off from the ground, sometimes.”

     “The armour keeps you safe, Carys,” you tell her. “It isn't entirely unnecessary.”

     Carys hums, and after a moment of reflection, says, “I suppose they _do_ dress up trees around Wintersday, don't they?”

     “Something like that,” you allow.

     The both of you slip back in a silence only permeated by the rustling of leaves and the trickling flow of water, and you keep your eyes on the grass billowing around you knees, pretending not to feel her eyes on you. Suddenly, she blurts out, all concern, “Is there something _wrong_ with them? Are they broken?”

     “Wrong with who?” you ask.

     “The humans and the norn. The asura, too! All of the other meat and bone races grow their own clothes—bears, cats, moas. Why can't they?” Carys asks, genuinely distressed. Before you can answer her, she stumbles across another point. “But the charr are fuzzy. They grow their own clothes, _and_ they make clothes.”

     “I think it has something to do with modesty,” you say.

     Huffing, Carys pushes herself to her feet with one hand and wanders out into the water. It reaches halfway up her shins and she stands with her back to you, arms folded across her chest. She's left her hammer in the grass, handle pointing skywards. The moment she realises she's forgotten it, she'll dart back. As if the Risen can reach you here. 

     “I don't get it,” she says, kicking up a little water.

     “The modesty or the clothing?”

     Back still to you, she throws her hands up, and says “Anything. I don't get anything! It's bad enough when I'm around sylvari and I know I'm not the sharpest thorn on the rose, but working with an asura...”

     She stomps a foot against the ground out of frustration, not petulance. You ache to see her like this, thinking she doesn't have anything to offer Tyria because of some arbitrary standard set by the races that came before you. She's brilliant and bright in ways that no one else you've ever met has been, and if anyone dares to call her _slow_ , they should see her swing a hammer. With your own shoes long since abandoned, you get to your feet and traipse through the water to meet her. Carys has her back to you, and when you put a hand on her shoulder, she tenses. You're halfway to apologising when you see the sadness set into her expression, so you wrap both arms around one of hers instead.

     “There are asura out there with minds sharper than Caladbolg's blade, no doubt, and they use all of their intelligence to justify cruelty. All in the name of curiosity. You're _brave_ , Carys. That's why you've always been my second-in-command,” you tell her, giving her hand a squeeze. “You saved me from Orr—how many self-proclaimed asuran geniuses would do that? Furthermore, how many charr war-heroes or norn slayers would do the same?”

     Carys lets out a little sigh, dropping her head onto your shoulder. “I wasn't thinking. I didn't have time to think—at first I thought the krait had you again, and when I found out where you were, I was so scared that I _wished_ the krait had you again! I just knew that you couldn't stay there.”

     “Look what Orr's done to me,” you say quietly, pressing your nose to the leaves above the wood of her ear. “I thought I'd be trapped there forever, and perhaps some part of me always will. But you—I fear you only hurt because I do.”

     There's death and decay in the Grove, just as there is anywhere, but it exists in a balance. Leaves fall to the ground, dry and fragile, and wood goes to rot; a sickle cuts fruit off from the rest of the forest, and the bodies of the flesh-races are swallowed whole by the ground, feeding the rich soil; but in Orr, death never becomes anything more. The dead die and the dead rise, and nothing returns to the ground. Even the air decays around you. For the last four nights, you've seen it whenever you've closed your eyes. Catching sight of your reflection in the water brings you out in half a shudder.

     “That's different. You didn't know you'd be saved! You were all alone, Tegwen,” Carys protests.

     “But you could've become trapped there as easily as I did.”

     “I know that. I knew that going in. But...” she pauses, tilting her head to look up at you, “I knew that if I got stuck in that terrible place you'd be with me. So I wasn't as scared as I should've been.”

     You wish she wasn't looking at you. You need to look away, just for a moment, but you don't want to dismiss what she's said to you. Smiling is about the best you can do. You think you're smiling, at any rate, but her face is starting to glow as night falls. You're transfixed, as if you're watching fireflies dance behind bark. Her honestly cuts through you at times, makes you wish that you could wrap your arms around her and hold her tight enough for her to feel what you're feeling. All of the other races say your kind are unprecedentedly affectionate, but this is an urge stronger than anything you've felt before—even in the Dream. 

     You settle for placing a hand against her cheek. She leans into the touch, eyes closed.

     “I wouldn't subject someone I detested to Orr, let alone you,” you say, watching as her glow bleeds through the edges of your fingers. “But if I had to be trapped there with anyone...”

     Carys smiles, finally, drawing her features back into a pattern that suits her, but it doesn't last long.

     “... the asura shouldn't make jokes about us. All this—calling us _salads_ , like it even makes sense. Don't they remember what they did?” In the Dream, you think Carys felt what they did to Malomedies more than anyone before her; it's of little wonder that she's so driven to protect all those she can. “Those—those undercooked burgers!”

     “Burgers?” you ask, brow raised.

     “Burgers!” she says, eyes flashing. “A charr gave me one. Said he'd cooked too many, for some reason. It's meat caught between bread, and you can put all kinds of salad in it—although the charr advised me against it!”

     She goes on explaining what sauces should be employed for the perfect taste – according to charr standards, that is – and you're captivated, at the mercy of a smile tugging the corners of your mouth. Not everything can come to you through the Dream and make its way into the waking world, and Carys beams with pride, delighted that there's something new she can share with you. And because you're listening, because she has your full attention, she tells you about pasta, and you have to agree; it does sound better than anything you could pluck off a tree. 

*

     The inky black of the night is swallowed whole by the dead, dry ground of Orr. The dead crawl out of the sea, ooze and gore falling from their flesh, flesh falling from their bones, and you hear the words twist themselves free of hanging jaws and splintered teeth. _Return to Orr_ , the risen demand. They mean it as an order, a threat, but you find a trace of sorrow wrapped in it—this is their return, and this is what has become of their bodies and their cities. _Return to Orr_ , they say, and then their hands are at your shoulders, your throat, nails scraping at bark, skin peeling away as they claw at you. They want to hold you under the water, to drown you in the darkness and raise you up as one of their own, and it doesn't matter how you scream that you're sylvari, that you can't be taken by the dragon. Nobody listens to you. Bubbles erupt around your mouth as you're submerged and still you fight, still you struggle against the wave; still you thrash against the hold of a dead and dying land.

     When the hands retreat and you surface, it takes you a long moment to remember where you are. After dreams like that, you're not sure where the divide between nightmare and Nightmare lies. You're in the Grove, safe. Trahearne said you could stay at his house for as long as you needed to; after all, it's hardly as if he's using it. Taking a deep breath, you brush your leaves out of your face, and your luminescence lights up enough of the room to make out Carys in the doorway.

     “Sorry,” you murmur, “Did I wake you?”

     “Not at all! I was—” she proves herself a terrible liar in pausing to yawn. “I was awake. And I felt like I should be here.”

     She means it more literally than most would. There's little point in trying to make the dream out to be nothing when it reverberates right through her, and so you sit up a little straighter, patting the space on the bed next to you. Carys skips over but loses all good cheer once she's by your side. She slumps against you, head on your shoulder, and you lift a hand, placing it gently against the side of her head. It's funny. When you first met her, you thought you'd always be the one protecting her; but here she is, a true Warden, comforting you in the dark of night. It doesn't feel as you thought it might. You don't somehow feel _less_ of what you were, like this is some weakness that's been exposed for all to see. It's only Carys here, and she understands. She always has done.

     “I can't stand to see you like this, Tegwen,” she says softly. “Is being back here doing anything to help?”

     “Well, it's doing more for me than being in Orr was. But Orr is still out there, no matter how far I run. I could travel to the highest point in the Shiverpeaks and I'd still feel the chill of Orr more than anything else. I can't escape it.”

     It's a painfully honest answer. A few nights ago, you might've said things like _I'm getting better, little by little_ or _it's going to take time, that's all_. A few nights ago, you might've believed your own words. But now, in the quiet and the dark with Carys by your side, you can't even begin to delude yourself. It isn't fair on either of you. Silence follows as Carys takes in your answer, turning it over in her mind, and you stare at the top of her head, wondering exactly what it was you did that made you deserving of a companion as loyal as this one.

     “This might not be the smartest thing you've ever heard, but...” Carys begins, taking a deep breath. “Maybe we should go back to Orr.”

     “Back to Orr? Do you know what you're saying, Carys?”

     “I do! I really do, Tegwen,” she assures you, pulling back to look you in the eyes. “I know that Orr wasn't as bad for me as it was for you, but I understand exactly how scary it can be. I thought you were going to be trapped there forever, and the thought of being apart from you is worse than having to face a thousand Risen. It'd be like—”

     She cuts off suddenly, exhaling heavily through her nose. The glow of her face casts stark shadows across her face as she scrunches it up in contemplation, and after a stuttery pause, she glances away from you.

     “It'd be like being cut off from the Dream,” she says, finally.

     You instinctively reach out a hand, pressing it to her cheek. You turn her head a little so that she's looking at you once more, smiling sheepishly and say, “You'd really come to Orr with me?”

     “That's what I've been saying. With our help, our big brother will be able to cleanse Orr in no time, and then this will all be behind us, won't it?”

     She's right. Of course she is. Since the moment she brought you back through the mirror and into the Grove, you knew that you were running from something you could never escape from. There's no pushing it to the back of your mind. You feel something thrumming deep within your chest, running down your spine, through the hard wood and vines that keep you sturdy, down to your very fingertips; something that feels like it might be your purpose. It's exhilarating and terrifying all at once, and when you look at Carys, you know it runs through her, too.

     The same Wyld Hunt.

     “It'll be dangerous. Worse than when we went in through the mirror. We might not make it back,” you tell her, barely listening to your own words, and she nods along with each point. “You'll have to remember everything I've taught you, now more than ever.”

     And even though your mind is still a tangle of thorns that you're futilely trying to grasp at, even though the thought of returning to Orr exacerbates the fear you've felt since been trapped there, what happens next is clearer than what you know you must do. With your hand still on Carys' cheek, you pull her closer to you and press your mouth against hers. You're partners, now. You're no longer her teacher; you can do this, finally. Carys lets out a sound of surprise that soon fades into a content hum and she clings to your shoulders like she's afraid she might fall down. Both arms slip around her, and you see her glow with your eyes closed, see your own light flood her face.

     “Tegwen—” she murmurs, breaking away. “Are you sure that—I mean, I'm...”

     “No one's ever made more sense to me than you,” you assure her, pressing your foreheads together. “You brought me out of Orr, and you can get me through it again.”

     Carys kisses you, this time, too excited to be anything but clumsy, and when she misses your lips, she leaves a scattering of kisses across your face, until she reaches the corner of your mouth. She laughs and so do you, and the noise spreads warmth through the night, leaving you more grounded than ever before.


End file.
